


Animals, but with far less grace

by RenegadeRedStar



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:35:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29152086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenegadeRedStar/pseuds/RenegadeRedStar
Summary: Set in a universe where Cerberus failed to capture Jack and were forced to find an alternative subject zero. Namely, in the form of one Kaidan Alenko.'It came to Jane’s attention that on top of being a murderous psychopath, Subject Zero was sharp.Not really a combination that made her feel safe, in all honesty. Everything she’d learned about the man so far practically screamed “DANGER, HANDLE WITH EXTREME CAUTION”.So naturally, she unlocked his restraints and redrew her assault rifle, firing onto the glass until it shattered.'
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard, Kaidan Alenko/Shepard
Comments: 5
Kudos: 14





	Animals, but with far less grace

The prison ship Purgatory was the first in a long list of last places Jane Shepard wanted to be. She tried to count herself lucky that she wasn’t there as a prisoner (for now, Warden Kuril kept giving her looks that just screamed “you’re my next meal ticket”) but so far, it wasn’t working. The reason she was actually there didn’t give her much more joy than the prospect of being locked up and forgotten.

In the fight against the collectors, she was going to need every advantage possible, she knew that. She just wished those “advantages” didn’t have to be murderous biotic psychopaths that Cerberus had surprisingly little on. Well, surprisingly little personal details, the list of charges Subject Zero had managed to amass was long and incredibly detailed.   
So detailed, in places, that it made her stomach churn.

This was not someone she wanted to be seeking out.    
  
Cerberus gave a rat's ass about what she wanted as she’d come to expect, so here she was, making her way down the hall to outprocessing with Garrus and Miranda trailing closely behind.    
Then the door she’d been led to opened to reveal an empty cell and her eyes just about slid into the back of her skull.

  
_ Here we go again.  _

_  
_ _ Fuck. _

Blue suns mercenaries swarmed into the room as she quickly ducked into cover and drew her assault rifle. Garrus already had his sniper at the ready and began picking them off one by one as Miranda attacked their shields. The three of them managed to make short work of the first wave, so Jane pressed forward and into the hall, firing off at the guards running to apprehend them. 

_  
_ _ This was going to be a long day.  _   
  


Miranda hacked through the door to the cryo bay and Shepard soon found herself staring down at a control panel, mulling over her options. She knew what Miranda was going to say even before she’d said it.   
  
“Shepard, you touch that control panel and every door in the cell block opens. Subject Zero is too much of a risk, as your second I recommend we cut our losses and head back to the Normandy,” the Cerberus operative supplied, as if on queue. Lawson was right to a point, all the other possible mechanisms seemed to have been fried, likely by that tech she shot on their way into the room.    
The only way to get Subject Zero out now was to let all hell break loose.

As for the risk factor… There was nothing in the galaxy that could stop Commander Jane Shepard from making a bold move.

“Thank you for the input, Operative Lawson,” Shepard responded, tone clipped. She glanced over her shoulder for a moment, looking to Garrus. The Turian simply gave her what she assumed was a knowing look and nodded. They hadn’t come this far for nothing. Shepard snapped her focus back to the console and began the unlocking process.    
“I’m taking Subject Zero out of cryo, be ready.”

The entire ship shook as Shepard unlocked the cryo cell, opening countless other cell doors as a result. There was no turning back now, this one had to be seen through. Machinery whirred and hummed and the cryo cell opened and rose up, revealing the individual it contained.    
  
It was a man, tall with dark hair and sharp features, tattoos covering every inch of skin on his arms and neck that wasn’t already covered by his prison jumpsuit. His skin was waxy, dull and covered in a thin sheen of ice that’d already begun to thaw. Jane narrowed her eyes and leaned toward the window to try and get a better view of him, but just as she did, his eyes snapped open.    
  


They were flat and virtually lifeless, to be expected for someone straight out of cryo freeze, but yet there was something behind them, something primal, unnerving.   
He stared up at her, not even a whisper of disorientation or lethargy present in his expression.    
His mouth twitched upward for a moment and it sent a shiver down her spine.    
  
He’d figured out what she was doing here, and they both knew it.

It came to Jane’s attention that on top of being a murderous psychopath, Subject Zero was  _ sharp.  _

Not really a combination that made her feel safe, in all honesty. Everything she’d learned about the man so far practically screamed “DANGER, HANDLE WITH EXTREME CAUTION”.   
  
So naturally, she unlocked his restraints and redrew her assault rifle, firing onto the glass until it shattered. She imagined Miranda’s eyebrows were probably hitting the ceiling by now, but she didn’t stop to look as she unceremoniously clambered her way through the window and down into the chamber below.   
  
Despite the fact that he was no longer bound by any restraints, Subject Zero hadn’t yet made a move to escape. He just stood there, eyes scanning her up and down as she stood up to face him. Neither got a chance to say anything as the heavy mechs around them activated and prepared to fire.    
  
_ Right. Forgot about those,  _ Shepard thought as she motioned to withdraw her shotgun. She didn’t even get the chance to remove it from its holster as the man before her lunged forward, pulsing blue as he sent a massive biotic throw carrening into one of the mechs, sending it flying into the wall behind it and completely obliterating it on impact.

Shepard couldn’t help but drop her jaw at the display. He might not have been particularly affected by his stint in cryo but even most of her fellow N7’s didn’t have reflexes that fast. Even  _ she  _ didn’t, and she had hyper-intelligent, hyper-expensive robot bits stitched through her.

Maybe Miranda did,  _ maybe,  _ but she was busy taking the stairs down to them because she was boring and probably didn’t want to get glass on her nice, pristine Cerberus uniform.

Subject Zero looked back at her, eyes flitting between her and the mech on the other side with a look that said “You waiting for an invitation?”. She quickly came back to the fact that she was in  _ active combat  _ and snapped out of it, drawing her shotgun  _ successfully  _ this time and firing a shot at the mech. It hit the headpiece, where the shields were most vulnerable, as she was hoping for. 

The mech trained its cannon on her, lining up a shot. She rolled to the side, dodging the blast and fired on it again, this time with incendiary rounds. As she was doing so, Subject Zero had taken the liberty of sending another throw hurling toward it, though not as strong this time. He’d weakened it to the point that she only had to fire a few more shots, then it exploded around them, sending bits of fried circuitry and burnt mech casing flying in all different directions.

They locked eyes in the midst of the explosion and Shepard’s heart skipped a beat.   
She immediately squashed that feeling and tried desperately to force it into the back of her mind. 

Then he  _ spoke. _

  
“So, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” 

The laugh erupted forth from her mouth before Shepard could even  _ try  _ to stop it. Given how ridiculous her day had been so far, she allowed herself the chuckle.   
  
“I’m here to recruit you, I have a very dangerous mission and I’m in need of capable individuals such as yourself,” She said, straightening up and trying to re-assume some semblance of professionalism. It was probably too late for that, but she didn’t care.

  
Garrus and Miranda entered the room at that moment, weapons raised and pointed at Zero. Jane gestured for them to lower them. She wasn’t done figuring this guy out yet, so pointing guns at him seemed like a bad move. 

  
“I thought as much,” He practically  _ purred,  _ flashing her a half-smile _.  _ Shepard suppressed the thought about how sexy his voice was and let out a puff of air from her nose, trying to keep her face as neutral as possible.   
  


She watched as his eyes flitted to the Cerberus logo on Miranda’s swimsuit-uniform, but he said nothing of it.  _ Interesting,  _ she thought to herself. The history with Cerberus was plain to see in his rap-sheet. Wherever Subject Zero went, a trail of bodies followed. A trail that almost always had Cerberus casualties in them, so it wasn’t hard to connect the dots that there was some kind of bad-blood between them.    
  
Since he didn’t immediately turn hostile at the sight of the Cerberus presence in front of him, Jane figured that meant he was probably laying a trap for them.   
She didn’t press him on it and simply gestured to the door out.   
“Well, let’s quit standing around and gawking at one another! Let’s move!” She bellowed, marching forward and out of the room.

  
_ No use springing the trap before it was ready, either. _

They made their way down a hall and into an open room. Prisoners and guards alike fired on them from all directions, sending the four of them running to the nearest cover they could find.    
Jane found herself crouching behind a fallen crate, clutching an inferno grenade and priming it to throw at the cluster of guards that were firing at her from behind a railing. Garrus and Miranda were to her right, both ducked behind another downed crate.   
  
She chanced a quick look out of cover, endless gunfire whizzing over head and careening into the wall of empty cells behind her. Subject Zero was standing right there in the open, body lit up with a wash of blue as he grabbed a batarian guard with his bare hands and slammed him into the ground. Blood splattered in every direction as he brought his boot down into the guard’s head, filling her ears with the sound of a sickening  _ crunch.  _

She dropped her head back behind the crate just as Subject Zero slid up next to her, using the pulpy mess that was once a batarian as portable cover. He relieved the corpse of his omni-tool and pistol, fingers flying as he activated and started fiddling with the dead guard’s tech.    
Jane flashed him a look, her best mask of shock and disgust. She figured he’d bought it when he grinned wickedly back at her and finished hacking into the omni-tool he’d pilfered, winking as he used it to overload another guard’s shields.

_ Well, he’s incredibly resourceful, I’ll give him that,  _ Shepard mused to herself as she chucked her second-to-last inferno grenade at the now shieldless guard. It burnt straight through his armor and engulfed him in a burst of flames. She tried not to focus on the smell as she popped out a thermal clip and reloaded her rifle. __

The ground rumbled and shook beneath her as the lights overhead blared red. The shriek of alarms pierced the air, Shepard's focus was shaken as the noise burrowed into her ears. 

_ Great,  _ her thoughts supplied, pushing their way through chaos. 

_ What now? _

She had  _ some  _ idea of what might've been going on, forcing her gaze to the man next to her to confirm.

"What have you done?!" Jane barked, tone more alarmed then she actually  _ felt.  _

Zero shrugged, grinning and flitting away at his omni-tool, not even bothering to make eye contact with her.    
  
Complicated as it made the situation, she had to force it to the back of her mind and re-focus on the battle at hand. Garrus had leaped out of cover, his sniper poised and ready to fire off at two prisoners he’d lined up, one in front of the other. The shot rocketed forth, and suddenly those prisoners were no longer an issue.    
  
Ever reliable Garrus Vakarian.

Jane followed the turian’s logic and sprang from cover, shotgun drawn and primed. Sprays of gunfire ricocheted off her shields as she stood to face the last of the opposition.    
_  
_ _ Time to end this.  _

She charged forward, any person that stood in her way was  _ meat _ . Her shotgun blared as anyone close enough for her to fire at collapsed into broken heaps. There was no time to fuck around anymore, she was done playing games.

Her shield crackled and hissed, threatening to give. It didn’t matter. They needed to get the hell out of there and those in her way had to  _ fall. Quickly. _

The last live guard in the room made a bolt for the far exit. She surged after him, racking the shotgun in favor of her pistol. He didn’t even make the  _ stairs  _ for the door before a shot rang out. But she  _ hadn’t  _ fired.

Subject Zero stood a few good paces behind her, stolen carnifex still pointed and smoking.

“Asshole,” He said plainly.   
  
“You knew him?” She responded, keeping her pistol drawn as she turned back to the door.    
  


_ Who knew what else they’d run into. _

He grunted in affirmative, falling into step behind her. Miranda and Garrus took up the rear, likely to protect her if Zero motioned to shoot. Turning her back on the enemy wasn’t something she did lightly. Shepard went with her gut that he wasn’t about to.   
  
_ Yet. _ _  
_

She’d stake every last one of her credits that he was waiting for  _ just  _ the right moment.   
  
All good predators did.

“What  _ did  _ you do?” Garrus asked, circling back to the fact that alarms were still blasting their way through the air. Zero hummed melodically, his omni-tool chirping as he flitted away on it. 

“You’ll have to be more specific, my turian friend.”

“It’s Garrus, and you  _ know  _ what I meant.”

“I disabled life support on the other side of the ship,” He responded, flatly.   
  


Jane halted, turning her body to face the three of them. He said it as if it were the  _ simplest _ thing, like it was the  _ natural  _ thing to do in that situation.   
Dangerous, opportunistic and tech-savvy, an  _ excellent  _ combination for taking on the collectors. It was getting him to focus his energy on them that was going to be an issue. No matter.

It wasn’t like she couldn’t handle a challenge.    
  
“You  _ WHAT?”  _ Miranda spat.

“How did you even manage that?” Shepard inquired, her curiosity betraying her. It was important information for her to know, but being  _ too  _ forthright wasn’t smart. He needed to think that she was on his side. More than that, he needed to believe she was  _ stupid  _ enough to be on his side.

He shifted from foot to foot, mulling her question over and stalling them from addressing the  _ immediate _ danger.    
  


“The guard I took this from,” Subject Zero started, gesturing to his omni-tool, “Had access to several important ship processes through this thing. It wasn’t hard to get control of them, his security protections weren’t very good.”

“You’re talking about a guard. A guard in a  _ maximum security prison _ ,” Jane stated, emphasizing an inflection of doubt on the last three words. In reality, she believed him. Prisons were only as strong as their weakest link.

He shrugged in response, plainly stating, “You  _ obviously  _ don’t spend a lot of time in prison.”   
She smirked.    
_  
_ _ Sure. _ _  
_ _ We’ll go with that. _

“Just picking that up now, are we?” Shepard commented, lacing her voice with sarcasm.    
Zero snickered, strutting ahead of them, heading toward one of the doors in the hall. Jane stomped after him, making sure to stay close to his side.

“Follow my lead, princess. I’ve got some loose ends to tie up before we get out of here.”

She scoffed, begrudgingly complying.    
“You mean the warden,” Garrus added, flashing Shepard what she’d grown to assume was the turian equivalent to a bemused look. Bastard was probably enjoying this. It was fair, given all the times she’d given him shit while they were fighting Saren, but it made her narrow her eyes at him all the same.

_ Smug asshole. _

“Dead on. There’s a little  _ chat  _ I’d like to have with Warden Kuril,” He acknowledged, honeyed words dripping with intent. 

“As long as you don’t try and take out the whole ship while we’re on it,” Miranda stated.

He turned his head back, grinning wickedly at the Cerberus operative. The smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“Of course not.”

Shepard motioned for her squad to follow the man, Miranda warily strode forward, pistol clutched close to her chest. Garrus fell into step without hesitation, throwing her a nod of recognition as the metal doors hissed open to reveal a slew of guards posted behind every fixture imaginable.

Subject Zero flared, throwing several guards from cover before he’d even taken a step. Shepard raised her pistol and finished them off, earning her a wink and a smirk from Zero. 

The four of them managed to work their way through the hostiles at a reasonable pace. Not without several shield failures and a few new scuffs and burns to Shepard’s armour plating, but they got through just the same.   
  
Jane noted the amount of shots Zero had fired during the fight.    
12, all up.    
He was approximately two thermal clips down and she hadn’t seen him reload in any new ones.   
  


_Good._   
  
A fully loaded gun and an unpredictable criminal were a bad combination, especially as they edged closer to the Normandy.

The final large room between them and the ship just so happened to contain Warden Kuril. Shepard sent a collective thank you to any deity that might have been listening and quickly skirted her way to cover, Garrus sliding in beside her.    
  


Miranda was on her left, crouched down and eyeing Zero with a blistering stare. The operative was probably going to bleed out of her ears trying to figure out his true motives. His motives didn’t matter, not to Shepard. It’s what he intended to do to them that was the concern.

As he moved fluidly across the battlefield, eliminating any hostile that fired on him with a mixture of tech attacks and biotics, she continued to further narrow it down.

Kuril was heavily protected behind a shield generator, standing raised above them on top of a platform. Guards swarmed nearby to protect the warden as he spouted off some bullshit about killing her and being just in his actions.

_ Typical. _

“You’re a two bit slave-trader and I don’t have time for it!” Shepard roared over the cacophony of gunfire.   
  
The warden scoffed in response, rifle trained on her position.   
  
“At the very least, I can recapture Subject Zero! Thank you for returning him to me so… unscathed.”

Kuril’s words slithered straight to Jane’s core, creating an uneasy pit in her stomach. There was something… off about the way he said it. However murderous Zero was, she was sure that he didn’t deserve whatever the warden seemed to be implying.   
Subject Zero seemed to think the same.

He was out of cover, working in tandem with Garrus to disable the shield pylon that Kuril’s image warped and shimmered behind.    
Shepard lobbed her last inferno grenade at the guards that posted themselves below the Warden’s platform, flames erupting and engulfing them all.   
She always saved the best one for last.

Kuril’s shield generator finally fizzled out and Zero  _ lunged  _ in his direction, body completely enveloped in blue flames. A massive biotic blast careened into the Warden, sending him rocketing off the platform and spiralling down to their level.

Subject Zero stalked over to where Kuril had collapsed. Jane trailed behind him, watching as grabbed the Warden by the throat and hoisted him up, his digitigrade legs dangling slightly off the ground.

“My name is Kaidan!” He screamed.

Kuril didn’t get a chance to respond, gasping and struggling to break free under his former prisoner’s iron grip. With one swift motion, the Warden was slammed back into the ground.  _ Kaidan  _ raised his pistol, firing a single shot into his head.    
Then another. And  _ Another.  _

Jane had counted 9 shots total when he finally finished.

He turned back to her. His eyes were blank, without remorse. 

“Let’s get moving,” he stated, tone flat. 

She gave him a curt nod, turning to the far exit and advancing towards it. 

The group made their way down one final hallway before reaching the docking bay. Shepard watched Kaidan as he strode ahead of her, pausing just in front of them. She quickly flashed Garrus and Miranda her “be ready" look as he rolled his shoulders and abruptly turned back to them, Carnifex pointed and primed.

“So sorry to have to do this, Cerberus scum,” he spat, sending a shot each to Miranda and Garrus. Their shields absorbed the brunt of the impact, but it was enough to down the two of them, leaving Shepard alone to stand against him. 

He leered intently as he prowled back over to where she was standing, pressing his pistol to her forehead.    
“You. You command that ship over there, don’t you?” Kaidan sneered, titling his head in the direction of the Normandy. Jane dropped open her mouth, pasting her face with an expression of fear. 

“Y-Yes. Whatever it is you need, I’m sure we can come to a reasonable-” she stammered as he cut her off.

“Save it,” he snarled as he pressed the gun further into her skull, “What I  _ need  _ is you to get me on board, watch as I space your filthy fucking Cerberus crew and then let me into to your system so I can get as much information as possible on what your pathetic little group is up to. Do that, and I  _ might  _ let you live.”

Jane dropped her act, smirking back at him.

“Now why would I do  _ that _ , Subject Zero?” she replied, purposefully challenging him.

“MY NAME IS-” he cut himself off, expression  _ seething  _ with contempt, “Because. I’ve downed your colleagues and I’ll do worse to you if you don’t do as I say right now!”

The fact he hadn’t fired yet was proof enough that her theory was right.

“You won’t shoot me,” she stated, plainly.

His anger boiled over, practically jamming the gun into her skull.   
  
“And why the FUCK is that?!”

Her hands grasped over his wrist, forcibly lowering his weapon.

"Because you  _ can't. _ "

Shepard threw herself forward, connecting her head with his with a force violent enough to send him stumbling back. She rushed forward, maneuvering behind him and pinning his arms behind his back. He had no time to struggle as she surged them toward the glass, leveling him face-first into it.

Kaidan collapsed to the ground, unconscious but still breathing.

Garrus and Miranda rose behind her, shaking off their previous disorientation as they approached.

“So what do we do with him now?” Garrus inquired, staring down at the unconscious biotic criminal she’d just layed out.

“We take him back to the Normandy, I’ll convince him to join us when he wakes up.”

“Are you sure, Shepard?” Miranda added.

“Absolutely. You know I like a challenge.” 


End file.
